Posted
by
Soulskill
on Sunday March 28, 2010 @11:36AM
from the arrr-me-hearties dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from TorrentFreak:
"The file-hosting service Rapidshare is seeking major entertainment industry partners for an online store [to which links containing infringing material will redirect]. The plan is an attempt to bridge the gap between copyright holders and users of the site who distribute infringing material. Similar to many other companies that operate in the file-sharing business, Rapidshare often finds itself caught between two fires. On the one hand it wants to optimize the user experience, but by doing so they have to respect the rights holders to avoid being continuously dragged to court. To ease the minds of some major executives in the entertainment industry, Rapidshare's General Manager Bobby Chang has revealed an ambitious plan through which copyright holders could benefit from the file-hosting service. At the same time, Chang says that his company will target uploaders of copyrighted material — whom he refers to as criminals — more aggressively."

Youtube has always removed copyrighted material when informed too. Yet we found out recently that they intentionally allowed the hosting of copyrighted material in order to boost their market (and mind) share. I'd be surprised if Rapidshare, et. al, hasn't pursued the same strategy. Personally, I've never used Rapdishare for anything that wasn't pirated.

Sorry, but no. It's still piracy. You paid for a DRM-laden file, and a DRM-laden file is all you're entitled to. That's not to say that I would find the practice particularly objectionable, but just know, it's not supported by law.

The copyright-holder has the right to close off any distribution avenue they like for their work (to within fair use). You can reason this in terms of finance. Basically it undercuts their ability to sell a cheaper, inferior, DRMed version, and a more expensive DRM-free version.

Nope, that's wrong. The DMCA has no fair use provision. Breaking DRM for any reason is illegal now. God bless America.

Trust me, it wouldn't bring the iTunes servers to a standstill - iTunes songs are served by the same machines that serve Windows Update - the Akamai CDN. More bandwidth than Slashdot, SourceForge, and Youtube combined.